Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red seems to have been caught in one of the strangest, dumbest lies that I can think of from the last few years, and it’s all about whether or not Keanu Reeves played the game that he stars in or not.
Doing press junkets for the release of The Matrix Awakens – the Unreal Engine 5 tech demo that’s being used to hype up the new generation consoles and promote the new The Matrix Resurrections movie – Reeves was asked in an interview with The Verge if he actually plays video games himself: “No.”
“Really, even Cyberpunk?” The Verge followed up. “No, I mean I’ve seen demonstrations, but I’ve never played it,” Reeves stated.
It’s quite a funny interaction in isolation, giving us a very brief glimpse into the life of one of Hollywood’s most beloved stars, and certainly makes sense. Reeves is now 57 years old, and while he’s quite clued up about technology – enough to laugh at the notion that you could have “digital scarcity” with NFTs – he’s of a generation where video games were far from mainstream while growing up. Clearly he’s just got other priorities in his life.
The thing is, Reeves’ assertion means that CDPR lied to investors in an earnings call last November. In the earnings call, president and co-CEO Adam Kicińsk fielded a question on whether or not Keanu Reeves had played Cyberpunk 2077. He rather unequivocally said, “Yes. Yes. He played the game. But as far as I know haven’t finished yet. So — but definitely, he played the game and he loves it.”
Egg, meet face.
On the one hand, this is just embarrassing for CDPR, but on the other, it’s lying to investors, which is a big no-no. Avoid answering a question in full, reframe your answer, put things in an optimistic light, but don’t lie. There’s not even a good reason to lie about this, even if the fib is tiny when compared to the allegations that they misled investors over the quality of the game at launch. That in its own right led to lawsuits, which CDPR has just entered into settlement negotiations over, while the actual quality of the game led to a high-profile refund policy and the game being unavailable to buy on PlayStation Store for 8 months.
CD Projekt Red are still hard at work on Cyberpunk 2077 and the enhanced versions of the game for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3’s new generation remaster are expected to hit the new machines in early 2022.
Source: The Verge